This invention relates to hair cutting devices, and more particularly to a trimming device for one hand self-use in trimming, preferably a person's beard, although it may also be used to trim the hair on a person's head.
Typical scissors for cutting hair and the like in the prior art, such as the ones disclosed in the Megna patent, U. S. Design Pat. No. 236,681 (1975), generally have two cutting blades pivotally connected together at one point along their respective lengths, with the cutting edge of one cutting blade facing the cutting edge of the other cutting blade, and both cutting blades are located on the same side of the pivotal connection. Each cutting blade has at its opposite end a handle by which its pivotal movement toward and away from the other cutting blade is controlled by one of the fingers of a person's hand to cause relative sliding movement of its cutting edge against and past the cutting edge of the other cutting blade parallel to the plane of their contact for a cutting or trimming action. Both handles are generally located at one end of the scissors on the opposite side of the pivotal connection from the two cutting blades, which are located at the other end of the scissors. Any slight movement of the wrist in using such scissors for controlling the handles and hence controlling the guiding of the cutting blades toward or away from the face translates into a greater movement of the cutting blades than the movement of the handles, and the longer the cutting blades are, the greater still is the movement of the farthest point of the cutting blades toward or away from the face. Also, the weight of the cutting blades is cantilevered from the handles, as held by the user.
Since the only effective way one can trim one's own beard with reasonable satisfying results requires the use of a mirror to view the position of the cutting blades relative to the face, and then attempt to visually coordinate what one sees in the mirror and control the positioning of the blades by appropriately moving the wrist and or arm of the hand holding the scissors. This visual coordination and control of the movement of the hand through use of a mirror is not easy because one generally has the conscious feeling of where the hand is positioned, without regard to what one sees in the mirror. If one then applies this conscious feeling toward controlling the movement of the hand, the resulting movement is often different and undesired from what actually occurs when viewing the action in the mirror. The resulting movement is often initially awkward, to say the least, until by practice one becomes accustomed to it. But it is often tiring, whether one becomes accustomed to it or not.
The inventor, has overcome such awkwardness by his trimming device in which both blades and also both handles for controlling the blades are located on the same side of the trimming device while the pivotal connection for the blade members is located on the other side of the trimming device, and in such manner that in use of the trimming device both the handles and the blades will be located directly over and will be supported by the hand holding the trimming device against the beard. The distance of the movement, and here such "movement" is not meant the pivotal movement of the blade members, but rather the movement of the wrist or arm, in controlling the direction of movement of the handles and hence the direction of movement of the blades toward or away from the face, translates essentially to the same distance of movement for the blades as for the distance of movement for the handles. In operation, and assuming the trimming device is being held in the right hand of the user for trimming the beard on the right side of the face, the ends of the cutting blades point toward the rear of the user's head, while the right hand is positioned so that the heel of the hand faces in a natural position of the hand toward the front of the user's head, and the right thumb controls the pivoting action of the one blade member, while the right index finger maintains the other blade member in relatively fixed and non-moving position against the beard at the location where the user wants the trimming action to occur. When trimming the beard on the left side of the face, the heel of the right hand then faces toward the rear of the user's head and the ends of the blades point toward the front of the user's head. In this manner also, the weights of both the blade members and the handles are concentrated directly above the hand in its natural position in the positions described above for the right hand in use of the trimming device. There is, therefore, less strain on the hand and arm of the user during the trimming action. Although the blade members of the trimming device of the invention are shown herein as being used by the right hand of the user, the trimming device can also be made so that it may be used by a left-handed user with similar results, and therefore, the trimming device of the invention may be manufactured either for right-handed or for left-handed users.
In an alternate embodiment of this invention, a comb element may also be attached to the one blade member that is to be positioned against the user's beard in relatively fixed and non-moving position to achieve an effective and satisfying trim of the user's beard. The Volland patent, U. S. Pat. No. 583,005 (1897), is an early example of the use of a comb element on a "hair cutting machine" but where the cutting blades are located on one side of the hair cutting machine and its pivotal connection and the handles are located on the opposite side of the hair cutting machine and its pivotal connection. The Tuck patent, U. S. Pat. No. 2,489,168 (1949), discloses a comb element in use with a scissors arrangement, but where control of the scissors occurs by the provision of a third handle so that the user uses both hands to guide the scissors in cutting hair. The Kashian patent, U. S. Pat. No. 2,532,921 (1950), discloses still another example of a comb element attached to one of the cutting blades, but the scissors and comb combination is operated like a clipping device where the handles are held by the user at essentially right angles with respect to the user's head away from the head rather than in typical essentially parallel relation to the user's head, as is the case with the other scissors mentioned above and with the trimming device of the invention disclosed herein.
The Ames patent, U. S. Pat. No. 2,721,385 (1955), discloses a hair cutting device having a non-moving blade and a movable blade, which is spring-biased to the open position away from the other blade. The device has an elongated sheet-like flat handle, which extends at right angles away from the two blades; a comb, which may be formed by bending up one edge of the sheet-like flat handle; and a guide leaf, which projects from and is parallel to the comb to assist in guiding the comb away from the head. The sheet-like flat handle may either be gripped between the extended fingers (between the second and third fingers) of the left hand while the fingers of the right hand press the movable blade down against its spring-bias toward the non-moving blade in a cutting action, or the sheet-like flat handle may be gripped between the fingers and thumb of the user's hand and the movable blade pressed down against its spring-bias by the other fingers of the same hand. This device, also unlike the other devices of the prior art described above, has the blades, comb and the major portion of the length of the sheet-like handle disposed on one side of the pivotal connection for the movable blade.